Speaker Pelosi Backs Senate Amendment to Regulate Talk Radio
  • Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday that she supports an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.”

    The amendment’s language is viewed by many media experts as a means to regulate conservative talk radio, particularly popular programs such as the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Mark Hannity Show, among many others.

    House Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a former radio broadcaster and one of Congress’ biggest opponents of the Fairness Doctrine -- an FCC regulation removed in 1987 that forced broadcasters to grant equal airtime to opposing political viewpoints -- told CNSNews.com that the amendment is a masked attempt to restore the Fairness Doctrine.

    The amendment, sponsored by Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and attached to a bill (S.160) that would grant Washington, D.C., a vote in the House of Representatives, was approved by the Senate last Thursday in a party line 57-41 vote.

    When asked whether she supports Durbin’s amendment, Speaker Pelosi said, “Certainly, I support Mr. Durbin in most things.”

    “Diversity in media ownership is very, very, important,” said Pelosi.

    Minutes after the passage of the ‘Durbin amendment’ last Thursday a separate amendment that would ban the restoration of the Fairness Doctrine, which was proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), was also attached to the same D.C. voting rights bill and passed by a vote of 87-11.

    But Pence told CNSNews.com that Durbin’s amendment would mandate a “stealth Fairness Doctrine.”

    “Its clear to me that Democrats, having failed in their frontal assault on talk radio in America through the Fairness Doctrine, are now shifting strategy to a form of regulation that is essentially the Fairness Doctrine by stealth,” Pence said. He added that he is not surprised Pelosi has endorsed Durbin’s plan.

    “It should come as little surprise that Speaker Pelosi, who openly supports returning the Fairness Doctrine to the airwaves of American, would support a new version of it,”